Police Horrified By What They Find In Home Of Man Who Gunned Down Black Family

By: Jim Owen | September 21, 2017

A white man accused of killing two African-Americans in Louisiana last week owned a copy of an Adolf Hitler speech, according to the Daily Mail.

Prosecutors in Baton Rouge have charged Kenneth Gleason, 23, with two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of 59-year-old Bruce Cofield and 49-year-old Donald Smart. The city’s police department reported that Cofield was homeless and Smart worked as a dishwasher. Officers said that in separate incidents, Gleason gunned down his victims while sitting in his car. He then allegedly approached the wounded men and shot them several more times.

The suspect apparently did not know his victims. “Had there not been a swift conclusion to this case, I feel confident that this killer probably would have killed again,” Interim Police Chief Jonny Dunnam told reporters. “He could have potentially created a tear in the fabric that holds this community together.”

An anonymous source The Associated Press identified only as a law-enforcement official revealed that cops found the Hitler speech while searching Gleason’s home following the shootings. Sgt. L’Jean McKneely said investigators “are not completely closed off to” the likelihood that the murders were racially motivated. “We’re looking at all possibilities at this time, so we’re not going to just pinpoint that,” he explained. District Attorney Hillar Moore, who suggested he might pursue a death sentence for Gleason, added: “It appears to be cold, calculated, planned, (targeting) people who were unarmed and defenseless. We don’t need to prove motive. There are a lot of things that are unanswered.”

The murder spree was not the first time Gleason allegedly shot at African-Americans. According to police, he once fired a number of rounds at the home of a black family in his neighborhood. No injuries were reported.

Baton Rouge has been the scene of multiple violent incidents in recent months. The number of murders in the parish so far this year is greater than the 62 killings in all of 2016, The Advocate reported. Louisiana’s capital city “has been through a lot of turmoil in the last year,” the police chief noted. Last summer, white cops fatally shot an African-American man in front of a convenience store. Two weeks after that, a black man killed three police officers and injured three others.

Determining Gleason’s motive is complicated by the fact that he had no profiles on social media. He reportedly was a student at Louisiana State University from 2013-14, after attending Baton Rouge Community College. In addition to the Hitler speech, officers discovered 9 grams of marijuana and vials containing human growth hormone in the suspect’s home, according to police records.

“I’m feeling down and depressed,” said Mary Smart, the aunt of one of Gleason’s victims. “My nephew, I love him, and he was on his way to work, and that makes it so sad. He was always smiling and hugging everybody. A lot of people knew him.” She said Donald Smart had two daughters and one son. When asked whether she believed Gleason shot the dishwasher because he was black, the aunt replied: “I cannot say. Only God knows.”